National Geographic has an interesting story about how the arrest of a Congo warlord is putting the Gorillas at Virunga National Park:

After a 15-month-long absence, the rangers were able to return in November 2008 after the park’s director, Emmanuel de Merode, struck a deal directly with Nkunda to allow his rangers to resume their work.
It’s unclear how that arrangement–and the protection of the gorillas–will be affected by Nkunda’s arrest.
“We’re being swept around by [political] events right now, but the national park has made a very concerted effort to remain apolitical,” de Merode said Friday from the city of Goma, located outside Virunga.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I would have more to say about primates, brain evolution, and life history. I still plan on exploring that in future posts, but wanted to mention this interesting item that deserves a post of its own.

Virunga National Park has a website check it out. You can find also sorts of neat stuff – such as the video of the silverback below. Or this post about two baby, orphan, mountain gorillas. The park needs your help and to that end there are various categories and levels you cans choose if you would like to help the park. Just follow the link above.

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"You may not be willing to admit that you resemble an ape; if your thousandth ancestor is more like an ape than you are, you may, if you wish, call it a coincidence. But if that thousandth ancestor's forebears become progressively more simian as you trace back the geneological lines, you will have to admit that somewhere in your family tree there squats an ape." Earnest Hooten

Charles Darwin

"But I had gradually come, by this time, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow at sign, etc., etc., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian." Charles Darwin: The Autobiography